The invention relates to a shielded electrical connector.
There is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,449,778 a shielded electrical connector assembly of the type having a forward mating portion and a rear cable connecting portion, the assembly comprising a terminal housing, upper and lower ground shields, and upper and lower insulative cover parts. The lower ground shield has a base panel with a pair of sidewalls and a rearwall upstanding therefrom and a forward contact portion extending away from said rearwall. The lower cover part has a base panel with a pair of sidewalls and a rearwall upstanding therefrom, the panel, sidewalls, and rearwall of said lower shield fitting against the panel, sidewalls, and rearwall of said lower cover when said connector is assembled. The forward contact portion fits against the housing, the housing having a terminal support platform flanked by a pair of upstanding sidewalls bridged by a hood toward the forward end thereof, the upper shield having forward contact portions which fit against the hood facing the platform, the forward contact portions of the upper shield engaging the forward contact portions of the lower shield when the connector is mated with a like connector.
The known connector, however, does not have continuous shielding along the sides thereof when mated with another connector. Grounding currents in the cable shield connected to one connector pass only through forward contact portions of the upper and lower shields. It has been discovered that mere proximity of shields in complementary mated connectors does not provide effective interference shielding, especially when high signal frequencies (on the order of 400 MHz) are involved.